Inside the Star

Rob Ford video: “His situation is dire,” addictions expert says

Ann Dowsett Johnson, an award-winning journalist who has written about her own battles with alcoholism, says she has compassion for Rob Ford, whose addiction is being played out in public with “an entire world laughing at him.”

“With this video coming out it would seem that there’s more evidence that this poor man is suffering from extraordinarily complex problems,” said Ann Dowsett Johnston, an award-winning journalist who has chronicled her own battles with alcoholism.

“I’m watching an entire world laughing at him and my feeling is one of deep and profound compassion,” Johnston said. “Because I feel that his addiction is very public and his need for help is very evident and his situation is dire.”

On Tuesday, Ford admitted to having smoked crack cocaine — “probably in one of my drunken stupours” — after six months of denial. He said he was not a drug addict, though he hoped to curb his drinking, and refused to step down or take a leave of absence.

“I didn’t perform as Mayor Ford did, but I empathize with the behaviour and I did feel a lot of compassion for him. Normally people don’t do this when they’re drinking.”

Johnston said the two most prominent aspects of addiction are that it gets progressively worse and is fuelled by denial, adding there are usually “many bottoms” for an addict.

“Hitting bottom (and) getting well takes a lot of fortitude, determination and soul,” she said. “My life looks completely different than it did before and I couldn’t imagine going backwards, and that’s why I feel compassion for Rob Ford and I’m concerned for him.”

Ford has repeatedly apologized this week for his drug use and instances of public intoxication, but Johnston said, from her own experience, the people who care about you don’t want to hear you apologize.

“They want to hear, ‘I’ve got a problem, I’ve gone to get help.’ ”

Ford’s reticence to admit his problem and step away from his job speaks to how those around him have enabled his behaviour, she said.

That group is shrinking, however, as more councillors — including some of the mayor’s closest allies — join the growing chorus for him to step down.

Johnston said she hoped this latest video would provoke a conversation — or confrontation — between Ford and those close to him that ultimately leads to the mayor taking a leave to seek help.

“It takes a couple confrontations and accusations to break through the denial that you can do this on your own, that you can wake up and change your life on your own,” she said. “Usually it doesn’t happen while you’re sitting in the office, business as usual; it takes going to treatment and taking a time out to, frankly, reconstruct your life.

“Maybe this will be the moment,” she said. “Maybe this will be the video that turns his life around. I wish that for him.”

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